1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a set of artificial teeth.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, artificial teeth for manufacturing a dental prosthetic appliance (a plate denture) have been designed with a special emphasis on the appearance so as to be as similar to natural teeth as possible. Natural teeth are gradually smaller in width toward the cervical area as seen from the labial side as shown in FIG. 22, and mutually adjacent teeth contact with each other only at one point close to the incisal edge.
When manufacturing a dental prosthetic appliance, the dental technician needs to determine the angle around the long axis while paying attention so as not to incline this long axis (dental axis), and arrange so as to contact with the adjacent artificial teeth, requiring an advanced skill and enough experience. For the ease of arrangement of artificial teeth, an invention for coupling artificial teeth mutually has been disclosed, for example, in JP-A-06-261917.
The shape of the jaw varies significantly from a patient to another, the width size of the dental arch varies about plus or minus 6 mm from the standard size. Conventionally, plural types of sets of artificial teeth of different width sizes have prepared, and the dental technician has been selected and used the set of artificial teeth closest to the width size of the patient.
Moreover, the shape of the teeth varies from a patient to another, some giving an impression of wide or long image in a long axis direction, or others giving an impression of round or square image. As a result, a wide variety of sets of artificial teeth are provided to conform to various width sizes and to various aesthetic shapes.
Thus, the dental technician needs to select a most appropriate set of artificial teeth from a wide variety of sets of artificial teeth according to the condition of a specific patient. Preparation of a wide variety of sets of artificial teeth incurs relatively high, it adds to the cost of the individual set of artificial teeth.